What Killed the Cat
by Someone Who Isn't Me
Summary: Eighteen-year-old Claire has never met ten-year-old Alice, but the two girls have one thing in common. Their curiosity has led them both into the forest near a small town called Clayton Crossing; a forest that seems outwardly innocent but is hiding a very deep secret. Claire has been forever changed by her experience in the woods, and Alice may be in danger as well.
1. Rendezvous

"Claire! You're daydreaming again, aren't you?" The voice came out of nowhere, startling Claire Martingale out of her dimly-lit fantasies. She smiled sheepishly, adjusting her seatbelt and turning toward the other girl in the car.

"Sorry 'bout that," Claire said, shaking off the lingering remnants of her daydream. "You know how my mind gets away from me..."

"Yeah, yeah," replied Lisa, eyes on the road but attention focused on her friend. "But I couldn't help but say something. You looked like a total zombie back there."

Claire looked uncomfortable for a moment. "Did I do anything... weird?"

"No, silly, nothing like that. You were staring off into space again, looking like someone'd just scooped out your brains like Ben & Jerry's from a jar."

Lisa's comment had been intended to defuse the sudden tension, but all it did was make Claire's insides squirm. Claire giggled nervously. "Yeah. Brains." She reached up and twirled a lock of auburn hair around her finger, and a few strands came out in her hand.

The two girls went quiet for a moment, and Lisa turned on the car radio to break the silence. Claire caught the first three notes of a pop song before Lisa gave a sudden, excited gasp. "Oh! I almost forgot," she said gleefully, smiling from ear to ear. "I've got to show you this thing McKenzie got me for my birthday."

Lisa pulled to a stop at the red light and rummaged through her bag, coming up with a black unlabeled cassette tape that had a single, tentacle-like wire trailing out of one end.

"What's it do?" asked Claire, perking up with interest the way she did whenever she saw some unfamiliar form of technology.

Lisa was aware of her friend's tendency to get all excited in the presence of shiny objects, and she played this new possession for all it was worth.

"You put it in, see, like a regular cassette that no one ever listens to anymore, but then the wire can go into your iPod and play your music through the speakers. Cool, huh?"

Claire nodded, genuinely excited for Lisa and eager to hear some of the music from her iPod, but the spark had gone out of her. Her little mental checklist ticked off all the things she usually noticed about new science or technology – _is it big? Important to society? Is it a weapon? Does it change the way that people live? Does it have any implications for digging or drilling or otherwise investigating things that should seriously just be left alone?_

The answer to all of these questions was a deep, resounding _Nope, _but Claire still tried really hard to care. "Sounds awesome," she said appreciatively, examining the place where the thin black cord entered the sleek, silver metal.

"I know, right? What do you want to listen to first?"

"How about that song by Dr. Reanimator?" Claire suggested. She wanted to hear something upbeat, something that would take her mind off her destination and the swiftly approaching night.

"Sure," said Lisa, and managed to find the song on her iPod right before the traffic light changed back to green. Claire leaned back into her seat as the techno beat began to vibrate through her bones. "I looked up that song, by the way," Lisa cut in. "I figured I should, since just kinda stole the file from your computer that time we traded music. Turns out, I think I know why you like it. It's that H.P. Lovecraft, guy, isn't it? The one you used to be obsessed with?"

Claire nodded. She _had _gone through a Lovecraft phase quite recently, but she'd since gotten over him. The guy's ideas were great, not to mention spookily close to reality. For all Claire knew, maybe Cthulhu and the others were real after all. It was just the writing that got to her. Lovecraft may have been a prophet, but he wasn't very good at portraying likeable characters and wrote as if he rarely –if ever- got out of his basement to interact with actual people.

"Yep, it's from Lovecraft," she agreed. "The song's about one of the short stories he wrote, about that guy who could bring the dead back to life."

"Google told me as much," Lisa said. "I mean, really, it's not like that's so impossible, is it? Maybe someday science will actually be able to do that, and the song will just seem silly. People from the future won't understand why we're getting so worked up about it."

"Or maybe someone can already do it," said Claire, suddenly aware that she was straying into dangerous territory. "M-maybe some_thing_…" Oh shit, the stuttering was kicking in. "What I mean is," she croaked, trying not to fall into the mental sinkhole that would leave her practically unable to speak for the next few minutes. "I m-meant that, with the d-defibrillators and the adrenaline and stuff, d-doctors can practically do it already." _Okay, good, she'd avoided it this time. _

Lisa gave Claire an odd sideways look. The setting sun glinted off her hazel eyes. "Ooookay," she said slowly, using that condescending tone that people got when they played along with some ranting crazy. "I get what you mean. Just relax, okay? You're really making me rethink this little road trip of ours."

Claire just nodded, not trusting herself to say anything else without tripping over her words. She'd been nodding a lot lately. _Must not fuck up_, she told herself. _I've gotta hold it together for like five more minutes until we get to Clayton Crossing._

"Thanks again for that, by the way," she told Lisa. "I know this is probably weirding you out, but I promise I'll be fine. Just tell my dad I'm hanging out at your house for the next few days, and then pick me up from here when I call."

"I've heard this crap already," said Lisa, an edge in her voice. Claire realized it had been stupid of her to even bring up the specifics of this "road trip" again. "What I don't understand," Lisa continued, "is why you won't just _tell_ me what you're up to. I mean, I can guess, but… What's so freaking mysterious about this guy that I can't even know his name?

"He's just… different," Claire replied, knowing even as she said it that the phrase was a horrible cliché. But it was true; They _were_ different, and Claire couldn't help but start thinking of the way They had seen right through her with those brilliant blue eyes. "You wouldn't understand."

Lisa sighed sadly as she flicked on her turn signal and took the next exit off the highway. "What's _happened_ to you, Claire? You've been like a totally different person ever since you ran away with him last year."

"I'm just a little nervous," Claire said truthfully. "We've been keeping in contact and stuff, but this is the first time I'll actually be seeing him again."

"Whatever," Lisa grumbled. "Good luck with him, I guess. Don't do anything that I wouldn't do."

Lisa was usually pretty easygoing, and if either of the two girls took some kind of risk then she'd be the one to do it. She'd been the first to have a boyfriend, the first to smoke a cigarette, the first to skip school on one lazy Friday afternoon. This time, however, Claire had overstepped even Lisa's implicit boundaries.

Claire agreed with her friend, then took another look out the window. It was nearly dark now, and the sky stretched out in a bruised shade of purple above the valley. Familiar lights twinkled around them as they drove through the small-town streets, passing quaint little shops and establishments. Claire caught glimpses of a nursery called The Grass Pad _('High on Grass For Over 50 Years!') _and a souvenir shop by the name of Nigro's Western Store. Places like that meant no harm by their names, but they probably wouldn't have existed in a larger town.

Claire closed her eyes and concentrated. "Turn left at the next light, please," she breathed. She could feel the car turning, aligning itself with her internal compass. The light shining against her eyelids dimmed a little, and Claire could tell that they were heading away from the main street now. "Then take a right over at 43rd street up ahead," she dictated.

"Hey!" Lisa said suddenly. "I think I know where we are. Isn't this that one place where you used to live before we met? You've told me about it all so many times, even that stupid western store, and the name of the neighborhood looks familiar."

"Yep, you've got me," Claire admitted, finally opening her eyes. Her mind raced to find an explanation for this turn of events. "We… The guy and I, I mean…. We knew each other as kids. Then he moved away a while before me, and last year I heard he'd come back, so I came to visit. See?" she declared triumphantly. "He's not even creepy at all."

Actually, she'd come back the year before just to visit in general, without having a particular goal in mind. She'd wanted to reconnect with old friends… friends who were girls, mostly. She'd only lived in Clayton Crossing during elementary school, back when she'd been in her "boys have cooties" phase. Claire had gone to visit mostly for the quaint backwoods charm of the place. She'd been curious to see if her old house looked any different, and she had wanted to take a walk into the woods behind the subdivision that her parents had always tried to prevent her from entering. Just the appeal of untouched nature, she guessed. She must have wanted to take a break from people and drama and the complicated nature of life.

There had been no "guy," at least not initially. But Lisa didn't have to know that.

"I guess…" Lisa said slowly, trying to digest this new development. "Man, Claire, I really wish that was the truth. It'd make me feel at least a _little_ better about this whole crazy thing."

Claire's only reply was another instruction to turn left at the next street. The two girls were now winding through a suburban neighborhood; in fact, they were already in the same subdivision where Claire had once lived. "Drop me off here," she said suddenly.

"_What_?" Lisa squawked. "Right in the middle of the road?"

"No, silly, on the sidewalk. Just do it, okay? He lives like a block away from here. I can make it."

"Oh my god this is so _weird…" _Lisa muttered, but loyalty won out over concern and she finally stopped the car.

"Now remember, don't tell anyone," Claire instructed as she gathered up her backpack and stepped out of the car.

"Okay," Lisa promised. Claire squinted at her friend's face, trying to detect signs of insincerity, but it was too dark to see much inside the car.

"Seriously, I mean it," Claire was saying, but Lisa had already pulled away. Her friend's dingy white Pontiac circled once around the dead-end street, then passed by the other way.

It was fully dark now. No pedestrians walked the scarcely-lit streets. A dog barked in someone's backyard, and the windows of the houses shone with a golden glow that Claire could not allow herself to share. The girl shivered at the sudden October chill in the air. She had a mission, a purpose that would keep her going, but she still felt very much alone.

Claire shifted the backpack on her shoulders and began to walk up the suburban street. It was, in fact, the same street on which she'd lived until the age of ten, and she was actually pretty curious to see how her old house was getting on.

It was that white one near the top of the street. She could make out its shape already, and as she strode down the sidewalk it became clearer in her vision. Nothing much had changed since she'd seen it last year, except for maybe some new roofing – it was hard to tell in the dark – and a different car parked in the driveway.

The great oak tree in the front yard must have grown at least a foot since she'd been a child, but even at night it didn't seem as tall or imposing as it once had been. That tree used to wake her up at night, scraping its branches across her window in the creepiest way a little girl could imagine. Claire found herself smiling at the memory. It would take much more than a few branches to scare her now.

She approached the house and walked up the side of the driveway, noting that no lights were on inside. Maybe the new family was asleep already, or perhaps they'd gone somewhere in their other car. Whatever they were doing was none of Claire's business, but she was glad that they weren't watching as she hoisted herself over the fence – it was so easy now, much easier than it had been even the year before – and cut straight through their manicured yard. Claire didn't so much _climb_ the back fence asvault over it; only one hand on the top to steady herself as she leaped.

Lisa was silly to be so worried about her. Claire was more than capable of taking care of herself.

She landed softly on the other side of the fence, imagining herself as some kind of ninja on a mission in the dark. Her earlier apprehension was all but gone, diminishing more and more as she got closer to the woods behind her childhood home.

Before she actually entered the woods, Claire stopped briefly to pull a flashlight out of her bag. Sure, she had a pretty clear sense of where to go, but she didn't want to trip over a tree root and break her ankle before there was any chance of getting it fixed.

The narrow beam of the flashlight revealed a dense mass of trees and a forest floor that was carpeted with fallen leaves of every color and description. Claire stepped across the last bit of semi-maintained lawn and soon found herself in the forest proper.

She strode purposefully between the trees, moving with a greater sense of urgency than she'd had before. Her flashlight moved back and forth, scanning the area ahead for obstacles, and she only deviated from her course to skirt around wide trees or duck under low-hanging branches. She was not distracted by the rustling of leaves or the occasional hoot of an owl.

Even though she'd only been this way a few times in her life, Claire knew exactly where she was going. As she approached her destination, her internal sense of direction became more like a GPS than something as vague as a compass.

She walked for – oh, maybe ten or fifteen minutes or so. Her old neighborhood had been at the very edge of the town, and beyond it was just pure Western wilderness. This forest was one of the last undisturbed areas of its size, nowhere near the magnitude of a reserve or national park but still pretty large compared to anywhere else Claire had been.

Even though Claire still had her cell phone with her, she wasn't exactly keeping track of the time.

_Oh yeah. The cell phone. _

Claire pulled out the phone and made sure to turn it off before stowing it back in her purse. She didn't want it ringing or vibrating in the forest while she was gone. What if someone heard and came across it? Claire herself had never gone this far into the woods as a child, but she knew there were hiking paths scattered across the area.

Sometimes people came here to "get back to nature" and collect ticks on their ankles… And, according to some of the stories she'd heard as a kid, not all of these hikers made it back in one piece. Her parents had told her of wild cougars, precarious cliffs, and poisonous berries; of people literally just going missing and never being found… But she hadn't believed them, not then. They were just rumors, with no actual facts to substantiate them. No records of any authorities investigating the area. Nothing but an inspiration for her own unfounded curiosity, and the vague admonition about those unfortunate people that "never came back."

_But I'll be coming back, _Claire reassured herself. _I've already stared into the abyss, and it's had a good long look into me. At this point, what do I really have to lose? _

With that pleasantly disturbing thought in her head, Claire walked the last five minutes until she finally reached the clearing she was looking for. The trees around her began to get thinner, then suddenly dropped off entirely.

She was there. She was _home. _

Claire's heart began to beat faster; her anticipation slightly tinged with fear. She approached the abandoned mine shaft with caution, mindful of what had happened the last time she'd tried to climb that ladder into the dark.

The hole itself must have been at least ten feet across, and it gaped so blackly that the surrounding night forest was a sunny day at the beach by comparison. Claire shone her flashlight into the mine, but it illuminated nothing but that endless stretch of stairs. They'd been repaired, she noticed. No more of that rickety rust that had greeted her the year before. No more crumbling rungs like the ones that had given way under her feet.

This had to have been the work of the Deep Ones. Who else would have gone through the trouble of fixing the stairs without actually sealing the shaft or putting up warning signs in the area around it? Perhaps Z'tagn themselves had done the repair job in anticipation of her return. They were so thoughtful, so kind… Her heart swelled at the thought of seeing Them again soon. The happiness she felt at the prospect of Their arrival was almost enough to eclipse the thought of what They would actually be doing. Almost… But not quite.

Claire laid her backpack on the ground near the hole, making sure to turn off the flashlight and safely stow it in a side pocket. She didn't want to accidentally drop it down the shaft and ruin it like last time. It would be dark, yes, but hopefully Z'tagn would be waiting with Their own light.

Without any more second thoughts, Claire stepped down onto the top rung of the ladder and began her descent into darkness.


	2. The Rabbit Hole

_One month earlier. _

It was a windy day outside, and Alice's dirty-blond curls bounced in the breeze. Humming to herself, the girl found the little red bucket that she often took on her adventures into the woods behind her yard. It contained a small shovel and a book on plants and creatures that could be found in the surrounding area, plus of course the bucket itself could be used to carry anything interesting she might find out there.

Alice liked to catch small creatures in the forest. She could search for them for hours, parting leaves and digging through the soft soil. Sometimes she found only the usual collection of insects and spiders, but she had occasionally managed to capture something larger like a vole or a toad. Her mother always let her keep such creatures as long as Alice fed them and made sure they weren't let loose inside the house. Most of Alice's friends wished they had a mom like hers who tolerated strays and wild things and other strange pets, but Alice just chalked it up to the fact that her mother was much younger than any of theirs. Maybe, at twenty-eight years old, she still had some faint memory of what it was like to be a child.

Alice unlocked the back gate and set off into the forest, scanning the trees for movement. There was nothing but the crackling crunch of her footsteps and the slow sway of foliage above her head. The late-afternoon sun slanted off the tree trunks, casting golden shadows on the ground that blended with the color of the yellowing leaves. Alice hoped that she would find something interesting today. Her latest lizard had died a few days before from unknown causes, and she'd had to let the garter snake go because it refused to eat anything she caught for it… So the aquariums and terrariums in her playroom currently had no permanent residents.

The girl walked deeper and deeper into the trees, the bucket bumping against her knee. She briefly caught sight of a little snakelet streaking through the tall grass, but it was gone before she could even reach down toward it.

_Aw, man_, thought Alice. _That was probably like my one chance to get something awesome today, and I have no idea where it went!_

She changed direction anyway, following the path the snake had taken, but she didn't see it again. She managed to capture a huge black cricket that had been hiding out under a rock, but it was tossed unceremoniously into the bucket. Maybe a few years ago, when she was seven or eight, a cricket would have been enough to satisfy Alice's curiosity, but right now she was searching for bigger game.

Alice's senses were on full alert, and she stepped – or at least _tried_ to step – as silently as a hunting cat. Several twigs cracked under her feet, but she didn't let a few little noises ruin the illusion of stealth. Somewhere above her, a startled bird set off a chorus of chirping among its fellows.

The girl made her way farther into the forest, trying to fight off her growing disappointment. Even though it was only mid-September, it seemed like there were already fewer animals around the woods. She couldn't see any of the turtles, rabbits, or squirrels that usually inhabited this area, and after a while she noticed that even the birds had fallen silent.

Alice stopped walking and looked down into the bucket, consoling herself with the fact that at least the cricket was still there. It hopped up and down ineffectually, but the sides of the bucket were far too steep for it to climb. Alice usually only caught crickets to feed to other animals, but maybe she could keep this one as a pet. Weren't there people in ancient China who used to do that? She could swear she'd heard of them from some place or another.

Shrugging off thoughts of the cricket –she'd definitely find _something_ to do with it later – Alice continued to move forward, scanning the ground for any possible movements. The wind kept confusing her, blowing things around and rustling the undergrowth. It was thicker here, much taller and more varied than the overgrown lawn grass that grew near the edges of the forest.

Alice stopped again and looked around at eye level, trying to figure out just how far she'd actually gone. She still knew which way was home, of course – she always made sure of _that. _But she'd never been in this part of the woods before. She wondered if her mother was worrying yet, or if she was even home at all. Maybe she'd run to Wal-Mart to get some groceries, or she could be on a date with her latest boyfriend. Now that Alice was ten years old, her mom considered her old enough to stay home alone for a few hours.

However, at the moment she wasn't exactly at home…

Yeah, she'd definitely never been in this area before. The woods were still oddly quiet, and Alice wondered again where all the animals had gone. She took another step forward, about to shrug off the odd silence, when it was suddenly broken.

_Oooiiillooooiiiilllooo…._

The long, ululating shriek pierced through the trees, startling away the last few birds that had been hiding in the trees. Alice nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound, frantically looking around in every direction. She'd never heard anything like that before… No animal that she knew of sounded like that, and it was too long and loud to be the call of a bird. It was almost like the voice of a flute, if the flute was being played by a tone-deaf kid from Special Education.

She wanted to call out; to say something, in case maybe the noise was being made by a person. What if someone got lost while hiking through the woods, and they happened to have a musical instrument with them?

Even though Alice had only just begun her last year of elementary school, she already knew how far-fetched that sounded. Still, she set off in the direction of the noise, fervently hoping it was a lost hiker or a hurt animal –oh wow, she was definitely a bad person for _hoping _that- instead of something dangerous.

The shriek came again.

_Iiiiooolllluuuuuoooooo… _

It was different this time, more like whatever had made the sound was calling for someone instead of simply yelling. It came from her left, but Alice saw nothing in the trees or grass in that direction.

The girl moved faster, scanning the trees with a greater sense of urgency. She was a little nervous, sure, but really more curious than anything. Earlier she'd been wishing for some kind of adventure to break the monotony of this endless Saturday afternoon… And it seemed that she might have actually found one.

She came to a small clearing in the woods and looked around. She could tell she was close to whatever had made the sound, but she didn't know where to go from here. Alice waited for a minute or two, but the uncanny call had fallen silent.

If Alice had continued further ahead, she would have eventually stumbled upon the larger clearing and the abandoned mine that Claire would later visit. If Alice had even _known_ about the mine, she would have definitely gone there before. But she didn't, and the strange sound had distracted her. It seemed that fate had something different in store for her that day.

"Hello?" she ventured, mentally kicking herself for just standing there instead of continuing her investigation. "Is there anybody there?"

_Ehhllloooooo? _The voice replied a few seconds later. It was definitely a voice, not a flute or an instrument, but it was too thin and reedy to be made by a person. It was quieter this time, but much closer.

Alice crouched low to the ground, realizing that whatever had made the noise was quite small. Her bucket, momentarily forgotten, was set onto the ground beside her.

A large bush towered in front of the girl. It was almost as tall as her when she was standing up, and from a kneeling position it was simply enormous. The leaves were a shape she had never seen before, and in any other circumstance Alice would have gone back and pulled out the little identification guide she always carried in there. But on this particular day, she didn't even think about it, because she was almost certain that there was _something_ hiding inside the bush.

She tentatively stretched out her hand toward the bottom of the bush, wondering if she should reach inside and try to grab whatever was in there. Both instinct and logic told her not to, but curiosity urged her onward. Instead of blindly putting her hand inside, Alice spread apart the leaves to take a closer look.

The creature inside the bush drew back from the sudden intrusion of light. Alice actually gasped at the sight of it; a reaction she'd always thought only happened to the heroines of the books she read.

The creature was small, about the size of a house cat, but size was the only thing it had in common with any other animal that Alice had ever seen. It was slick and shiny, all tangled up in its numerous pale-pink tentacles, and it reminded Alice of a squid or an octopus or some other undersea creature except for the troubling fact that _it was on land. _

Alice pulled back a little, letting go of the leaves, but then braced herself and reached in again. For all she knew, the creature could attack or even kill her despite its small size, but she needed to convince herself that she had actually just seen it instead of imagining the whole thing.

The creature was still there. It had uncurled a little now, and Alice could see that it wasn't as alien and formless as she had initially imagined. It had a well-defined head, complete with four blinking white eyes and a few small tentacles that looked as if they might cover a mouth. Each eye had something like a pupil, but it was shaped like the inside of three-spoked wheel.

"Whoa," Alice breathed. "Are you like an actual alien?"

It didn't answer, but it seemed to be getting used to the light. It uncurled further, and Alice noticed that some of its tentacles were thicker than others. It looked like it had separate arms and legs, with tiny fingers and toes at the tip of each one. The alien stood up shakily onto its seven feet; head bobbing from side to side as it looked at Alice from all angles.

It must have decided that Alice wasn't a threat. In fact, it didn't seem to be scared of her at all anymore, and its initial reaction had probably just been surprise.

"Welcome to Earth," said Alice, realizing how lame that sounded even as the words left her mouth. She wasn't even totally sure this creature _was_ an alien, and it probably didn't even understand English at all. But what was she even _supposed_ to say?

Still on alien-greeting autopilot, Alice finally just stuck her hand into the bush and offered a handshake. The alien probably had no idea what she meant by the gesture, but two of its tiny hands shot out to hold her own. Despite their small size, their grip was surprisingly strong. Alice figured she could still break away if she wanted to, but the alien wasn't doing anything threatening yet. Plus, the way their little fingers brushed against her palm kinda tickled.

The alien let out a short, musical trill; much quieter and more melodious than the earlier sounds it had been making.

"Sorry, I don't understand you," Alice said. "But your language is really pretty."

The alien's hands were exploring all the way up her arm, but it was particularly fascinated with the structure of her own hand. Alice's human hand was nothing like theirs, and it seemed amazed to find one with fewer than seven fingers.

Alice was beginning to feel uncomfortable from kneeling in the same position for too long. Sticks and stones were digging into her knees, which were bare below her denim shorts. She started to stand up, but the alien was still attached to her arm.

"Come on, let go for a sec," she cajoled, but it only grabbed harder.

Finally she gave up on standing and instead sat down in the tall grass, moving further away from the bush and actually pulling the alien out with her. It blinked wildly for a few seconds in the full brightness of day.

Its color looked subtly different in full daylight. Instead of a sickly salmon color, it was now a light shade of carnation pink. Even though Alice wasn't one of those girls who wore pink blouses with pink skirts and played dress-up with their dollies, she couldn't help but admit the color was pretty.

The alien finally let go of her arm, more interested in looking around its new surroundings. It reached up and pulled a leaf off the bush it had been hiding in, then popped it into its mouth and swallowed without chewing. It didn't look like it had any teeth inside that little beaklike thing, and Alice wondered how it could even break down the leaf in the first place.

_This is so cool,_ she thought. _I'm like one of those scientists who make first contact and then have to try to figure out the alien's secrets… _

_Wait a second, _she interrupted herself. _What about the _actual _scientists out there?_ Alice wondered if she should tell anyone or show the alien to some sort of authority. Maybe grown-ups would be able to communicate with it and find out more about where it came from… Plus, Alice herself would be famous! She would forever go down in history as the first human to see a creature from another world.

But what would happen to the alien itself? In the movies Alice had seen, there were almost always F.B.I. agents looking for the alien, wanting to destroy it or dissect it or something. She couldn't; _wouldn't _let that happen to this creature. It was _her _discovery, and that made it her responsibility. She would make sure that nothing happened to it and no one found out about its existence. Plus, the more she looked at it, the more she realized that the little thing was actually kinda cute.

"I'm not going to show you to anyone." Alice promised. "Not even my mom."


	3. Descent into Darkness

_"From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork."_

_-Albus Dumbledore_

* * *

Claire climbed. The descent seemed to last for an eternity, but she never wavered or tired. This time, the metal ladder was smooth on her hands and steady under her feet. The deeper she got, the less Claire could see or hear, and soon enough it was as if she was trapped in a silent, velvety-black tomb.

_Think of Them,_she told herself. _They'll be waiting._

She was probably nearly a hundred feet underground by now, and she marveled at the fact that she'd ever managed to survive a fall from even half of this height. If Z'tagn hadn't felt the impact or happened to be nearby… Well, then she wouldn't still be around right now, would she?

A small shiver went through Claire at the thought. Come to think of it, maybe it had just been the temperature. She'd always heard that it was warmer underground, but that must only be at the _really_ extreme depths. A few hundred feet under, and she was passing through rock that had never felt the light of the sun.

Claire mechanically took yet another step down the ladder – only to feel solid ground under her feet. She stepped away from the ladder but continued to grip it with one hand. It was absolutely pitch-black down here; cave darkness so extreme that she was beginning to see patterns and sparks dancing in front of her as her brain compensated for the lack of visual stimuli.

"Hello?" she yelled, hearing her voice echo through some unseen tunnel. "Z'tagn?" She tried her best to wrap her tongue around the odd name.

For a long time, there was nothing. Claire counted one-Mississippi, two-Mississippi, three-Mississippi, all the way to one hundred. Even though the ladder was still right there under her fingers, climbing up the other way had suddenly become unthinkable. She simply didn't have the willpower to make her body cooperate, and it felt as if leaving now would be the most terrible sort of betrayal.

She slid down the smooth stone wall until she was in a sitting position, resolved to wait until either Z'tagn came or she simply starved to death in this cavern. Two hundred-Mississippi, five hundred-Mississippi, one thousand…

And then she heard a sound. Claire froze suddenly, barely daring to breathe. The noise came again; a sort of soft scraping as if something large but delicate was making its way through the tunnels toward her.

"Z'tagn?" she called again, more urgently this time. "Are you there?"

She heard Them – oh, she so hoped it was Them and not something else that lived in the caverns!– give some kind of response, but from this distance it sounded like someone playing the first notes of "Flight of the Bumblebee" on a flute underwater.

"I can't hear you, but I'm over here by the ladder!" She felt so silly and helpless, but there was nothing she could do without a light. _Why_ had she left her flashlight in her backpack again? She'd been afraid she would have trouble climbing down the ladder while holding it, but now she was sure she would have somehow managed.

Over the next few minutes, the scraping became closer and louder, but the Deep One didn't attempt to speak to Claire again until it was only a few yards away.

"It is being only me, little one." The Deep One's voice was calming and melodious despite its odd choice of words.

"This is Z'tagn, right?" Claire asked. She didn't automatically recognize the voice, but something about the presence in the cavern just _felt_like Them. It was just as impossible to explain as her other intuitions, and she wasn't quite sure she trusted it without some kind of confirmation.

"Yes, but you would be doing well not to call me that later, all right?" Z'tagn didn't wait for an answer to continue. "To the others, I am known as Chirurintas. My given name was only told to you as mistake. It was sudden, your falling, and I was not prepared for talking with a wild Ape such as yourself."

"It's all good," Claire actually laughed out loud, her whole body suffused with a sense of relief. It was a bit of a shock to hear herself referred to as an animal, but that was just how the Deep Ones talked about humans. They lived practically forever and weren't really up-to-date on the new science and technology people had created to shape the world above them…. And, until a few thousand years ago, humans practically _had_ been animals, hadn't they? So it was really no wonder that her species was still held in such low regard.

"I wasn't exactly ready for it either."

"No?" They asked. "I was assuming that was a failed attempt at ending your life. Ape flesh can be destroyed by the simplest of methods, so it is not even necessary to be having a true cleansing by flame."

"Nah, nothing like that. I was just being stupid by climbing down here, and I fell down the ladder."

"Then it is seeming my replacement of the metal _was_ needed. I am glad to be of service." Z'tagn made an odd sound that reminded Claire of wind chimes, and she realized that They were laughing.

"Wait a second…." Claire wondered aloud. "Can't you like, read minds or something? How come you don't know that I fell by accident?"

Z'tagn did that laughing thing again, then reached out with one of Their many hands to stroke the side of Claire's face. The girl jumped at the sudden contact – she hadn't been able to see Them coming – but almost instantly relaxed again.

"You silly creature," Z'tagn said. "You could not see yourself in the moment after you landed. Do you really believe there was time for a detailed examination of your thinking kernel? I have been working with servitors for a very long time, but it was all I could be doing to put everything back in the right place and then make a few basic modifications."

"Good point," Claire agreed, no longer curious or joking around. Z'tagn's last comment had served as a sobering reminder of things she'd rather not remember. Things she might be about to experience all over again…

Z'tagn pulled Their hand away, and Claire heard Them briefly rummaging around in the dark.

"Ah-ha!" They exclaimed simultaneously in two different voices. A small flame burst into life and cut through the curtain of blackness, finally allowing Claire to look around at her surroundings.

She was sitting against the wall in a large vestibule that served as the entrance into the mines. To her left, a wide square-cut passage sloped downward into the surrounding stone. The floor was oddly slick, perhaps something to do with rain that dripped down here from the surface, but there were no stalagmites or stalactites because this wasn't yet a proper cave.

That was to Claire's left. And to her right…

Well, that was what Z'tagn looked like, wasn't it? Last time she'd seen Them, she had been beyond caring about getting a good look.

The Deep One was enormous, filling up most of the vestibule. Their tarnished-silver skin reflected the firelight, and many tentacled arms and legs twined in a halo around them. All six of Their aquamarine eyes – three to each side of Their elongated, beaklike snout– blinked in unison. Z'tagn was simultaneously magnificent and terrifying, but thanks to her earlier conditioning Claire simply stood awestruck instead of running in fear.

One of Z'tagn's hands still held the lighter, which looked like a metal version of those long barbecue lighters that people used to start fires in their grills. Another arm was busy slipping the bag back over its "shoulder." A third one reached out to Claire, taking her by the hand as a parent would lead a child.

"Come now," the Deep One said. "I've been storing the majority of my supplies in an upper cavern not so far from here. And I am sure you would be loving to meet my apprentice."

Claire followed Z'tagn down into the cavern, still holding onto Their hand like a toddler crossing the street. Z'tagn's lighter gave off a small, guttering flame that was bright enough to illuminate Claire's way but threw the corners of the cave into deep shadow. At first, girl and Deep One made their way down a small, sloping tunnel; clearly the remains of the same mine that the original vertical shaft belonged to. Z'tagn could barely fit through the human-excavated passageways, but They lowered their tentacles and contorted their flexible body until they could make it through even the tightest bottlenecks the tunnel had to offer.

After a while the tunnel widened, and the character of the rock itself began to change. The mine shaft had been smooth and squarely cut, with occasional gaps where deposits of some precious metal had been carved out of the walls. Now the rock was darker; lumpier. It looked like it had been excavated by something far larger than the previous tunnel, and the work had probably been done in a hurry. It was as if something from further underground had dug its own tunnel, seeking to mine goods from the world above.

Claire stumbled, tripped up by a loose rock, but Z'tagn pulled her up by the arm and kept her from falling. She smiled at Them, even though she wasn't sure how well They could interpret human facial expressions, and kept going.

The passage turned left, then right, and left again, winding deeper and deeper into the earth. Finally, it opened out into a larger cave, and Z'tagn's pinprick of light all but disappeared in the larger blackness.

_"_We'll need some light in here, Tonsri," Z'tagn called out. To Claire, he said; "This is my new apprentice, Tonsriaurantico. You will be seeing them quite shortly."

Claire could make out a dark shape moving around at the far side of the cave. Then, all of a sudden, it wasn't so dark anymore. A sickly green glow illuminated the shape of another Deep One, less enormous than Z'tagn but still taller than Claire herself.

"Put that thing away!" Z'tagn piped in alarm. "It will ruin the servitor if you hold it too close, and you know how hard it is proving to find good Surface Ape stock lately."

The light died out as quickly as it had appeared in the first place. Z'tagn made some kind of gesture to the other Deep One, and another lighter flickered to life in the dimness at the back of the cave. Then the fire spread to a larger torch, which continued to burn on a wall sconce after the lighter had been extinguished.

Claire could see the Apprentice more clearly now. Its skin was a bright yellowish-orange color, and the head was rounder with a less-pronounced beak. As Claire approached even closer, she could see that its eyes were a darker, colder blue than Z'tagn's. She also noticed that all eight of them were looking directly at her. Even though she was still wearing all her clothes, she felt naked under this one's roving gaze.

The Apprentice asked some kind of question, speaking with three voices at once in a language that no human could ever hope to understand. Z'tagn replied in kind, and the two spoke briefly before turning back to Claire. She had stood patiently through all these meaningless trills and whistles, slowly shifting from one foot to the other. Now she snapped to attention as Z'tagn turned to address her once more.

"Have you been under suspicion at all?" They asked her. "By the other Surface Apes, have they been noticing anything unusual?"

"Uh… I don't think so," Claire replied, wanting to sound more confident but unable to even hint at a lie in Their presence. "I mean, my friends might think I've been acting kinda spacey lately, but they have no idea why. And don't worry, I haven't been to a doctor or anything."

Z'tagn nodded. The gesture seemed forced and unnatural, and Claire wondered if They'd been studying human customs.

"That's all I really have needed to hear," They said. "At least, from your spoken words."

Claire knew where this was going, and she knew that she should be afraid. But, as had become usual for her lately, she didn't actually feel the adrenaline pumping through her body. This was purely a mental fear, and right now Claire was grateful for that particular modification.

"So what's next?" she asked almost casually. "We sit down for some biscuits and a nice cup of tea?"

"Not quite," They said, either ignoring her attempt at humor or missing it entirely. "Now we shall be reading of your experiences, and explaining to you some of our own."

The Apprentice let out a short, exasperated sigh.

"Quiet, Tonsri," Z'tagn said. "And if you do speak, use the Ape tongue in this one's presence. It is an animal, yes, but an intelligent one. We should be treating it as such."

"Oh-kay," the Apprentice said sullenly, and Claire was shocked to hear it speaking English. She shot the Deep One an encouraging glance, but it simply continued to leer at her in response. Claire had an ingrained respect for any Deep One she would meet, but she decided then and there that she wasn't a huge fan of this particular specimen.

Z'tagn seemed to approve of Their apprentice's linguistic accommodation. "We are going to proceed now with the modifications. Sit down right about here, please," They said, motioning to Claire with one arm and a spot on the stone floor beside Them with another.

Claire obediently sat down on the floor, noticing out of the corner of here eye that Tonsri had pulled out a large sack of tools from behind some crevice or other. Z'tagn reached into the bag with three arms at once, pulling out various metal implements that made Claire wince just looking at them. The tools looked surprisingly crude for such advanced creatures to be using, and a few had even begun to rust over. Despite the obvious signs of age, however, the blades on the hooks and knives remained unpleasantly sharp.

_Oh, God_, Claire thought, turning away so she wouldn't have to look at them. She had known what was coming; known ever since she had first become Z'tagn's personal servitor... But the knowledge made the reality of this moment no easier to bear.

There was no more time now to worry about the tools. Z'tagn withdrew to a position behind Claire, and the Apprentice watched with undisguised interest.

Z'tagn raised the first blade above the back of Claire's head.


	4. Foundling

Alice simply watched the alien for a few more minutes, but she soon realized that she had to leave… And the only way to make sure she kept track of the creature was to take it home. If she just left it there, she would most likely never see it again.

When Alice had first set out into the forest, it'd already been late afternoon. Now the sun was low in the sky, and once it sank past a certain point then nightfall would soon follow. Even though Alice should have probably gotten over her fear of the dark long ago, it still filled her with a sense of foreboding that she couldn't explain.

She reached out to touch the alien and get its attention. It was looking away from her, and each of its six tentacle-like arms were busying themselves with picking up different rocks and twigs and leaves so it could try holding them and turning them over.

While Alice had been watching it, it had made that distinctive loud calling noise several more times, but by the last time it had sounded like someone calling a pet that had long since run away. After that, it'd stopped entirely, alternating its attention between looking at Alice and observing the world around it.

At the moment, at least one of its eyes must have been watching Alice, because the creature turned toward her before she even made contact with its glossy skin.

"Come home with me," Alice asked it. The alien merely blinked at her, uncomprehending. It didn't really seem to be a very smartalien at all. So Alice simply picked it up like a baby and gathered it up in her arms. It stiffened for a second, its tentacles going rigid, but then it slowly relaxed and nestled into the crook of her arm.

Standing up, Alice completely abandoned her bucket now that she had more important things to carry. She looked around, trying to orient herself and determine which direction she had come from. The clearing looked practically the same from every perspective, with the same tall grass and broad trees framing it on all sides. For a single heart-stopping instant, Alice thought that she might actually have gotten lost.

_Stupid,_ she chided herself. _I should have marked something, or at least paid better attention, or…_

Then she caught sight of the huge bush, the one where her alien had come from (she had already started thinking of it as _hers,_ whether it belonged to anyone or not). She thought she remembered approaching the bush head-on, finding it directly on the opposite side of the little clearing when she first walked into it. And she'd made a point of walking in a straight line most of the time, only deviating a little here and there but never completely turning around…. So Alice was pretty sure she knew which way to go to get home.

She walked back through the forest, trying not to stumble over anything among the deepening shadows. The sun was still above the horizon, but it had already slipped out of her view. The trees, which earlier had seemed calm and stately in their cloaks of red and yellow, now shuddered ominously with each gust of wind.

Several times, Alice got tangled in undergrowth or scratched by low-hanging branches. The first time this happened, the sudden tug at her shirt felt like the grasp of a skeletal hand closing around her.

She pulled away, startled, and the branch slipped off her shoulder. Her heart pounded as if she'd been running. Her eyes darted around the darkened forest, and it took her a few seconds to shake off the feeling and make sure she wasn't actually in any danger. As soon as she finally calmed down a little, it happened again, and repetition made it no less frightening.

The creature squirmed in her arms a few times, seeking a new position, but it never actively tried to escape. Alice noticed this, and after a while she began to get the nasty feeling that somehow this was all too easy. She couldn't express it as clearly as an adult would have, but she vaguely felt the _wrongness_ of the whole thing.

Her fear was about more than just the darkness. This alien had been so easy to find, drawing attention to itself like that, and it hadn't really been afraid of Alice or put up a fight. What if it was just a decoy, and the _real_ aliens were waiting around the corner to ambush Alice and abduct her on their spaceship?

Alice had no answers to any of her own questions, so she simply kept walking until the trees around her began to thin. She knew she was heading in the right direction, but she didn't notice any of the familiar little landmarks that usually marked her way. Maybe it was just too dim for her to notice that huge lumpy rock that usually marked the edge of the woods, and the twisted old aspen tree was simply hidden in the gloom. Alice certainly hoped that was the case, but some irrational part of her brain kept screaming that she'd gone totally crazy.

As Alice finally exited the woods, she realized what the problem had been. She'd been moving diagonally instead of a straight line, and she'd come out of the forest a block or two away from her own cul-de-sac. Alice smiled and shook her head slightly at her own stupidity. It was still dark outside, but she felt a lot better now that she was so close to home.

The houses at the edge of the woods were all lit up, and Alice tried as best she could to conceal her burden in case anyone was looking out of the windows. The alien was busy chewing on one of its own feet with that little hardened beak it had, and it didn't protest when Alice shifted it to her other shoulder. She looked at it carefully, saw that it wasn't really eating its own limb so much as nibbling between the toes, and kept going.

Alice's own house was the only one on her street that didn't have lights shining in the windows. The girl cautiously let herself in through the back gate, then glanced around the side of the house to see if her mom's blue Honda Civic was there. It wasn't, and Alice breathed a sigh of relief. Her mom was pretty good, as mothers went, but Alice needed some time alone to think about what she was going to do with the alien.

The back door of her house was unlocked, as usual, and its hinges creaked as Alice entered her house. She quickly flicked the lights on, shuddering at the pitch-black interior of her kitchen. The light, provided by a set of "eco-friendly" spiral bulbs, was dim at first but slowly grew in intensity.

Alice kicked off her sneakers and pushed them into a corner, then released the alien onto the parquet floor. It got to its feet, a little wobbly at first but quickly gaining confidence in walking on the unfamiliar surface. The first place it went was back to Alice, leaning against her legs and letting out a soft little chirrup.

She realized that this creature was acting a lot like the duckling she'd adopted the previous summer. She'd found the duckling halfway out of its egg, and she had been the first creature it'd really seen. So of course it got attached to her, and would follow her around from room to room until it was a fully-grown duck. At that point, her mom had finally given it away to a friend who lived on a farm, but Alice still remembered the way it had imprinted on her.

This alien was much the same, but maybe not quite as intense. After a few moments of clinging to her knees, it started wandering around the kitchen and touching things at random. It was like a cross between an animal and a human baby… And that comparison made Alice finally realize why capturing it had been so easy.

This thing actually _was_ a baby, wasn't it? Alice couldn't believe she hadn't figured it out earlier. She'd thought she was so smart, reasoning about things all adult-like, but her analysis hadn't included the simplest fact of all.

Now the alien was… Alice quickly looked over to see what it was doing.

"Agh!" she yelped, rushing over to stop it from chewing on the leg of a nearby chair. She pulled it away, her heart sinking as she saw that a large chunk had been taken out of the wood.

"Crap," she swore, leaning closer to inspect the damage. There would be no way to hide this sort of thing, and if there was anything that actually made her mom mad it was the destruction of furniture that was expensive to replace. Mom always kept talking about how lucky she was to even own a house instead of living in a crappy apartment, and because of that she was always trying to save money.

Alice went over to the alien, eyeing it with a newfound wariness. The leaf it had eaten earlier was soft and easy to rip, but if this thing could casually bite holes in wood… Then who knew what it was capable of, and what it could eventually grow up to be? She steeled herself and picked it up again, but luckily it didn't bite into her the same way it had taken out a piece of the chair.

"Come on," she said. "We've got to get you to the basement before Mom gets home."

She carefully descended the steep basement stairs, then turned on the lights and stepped inside. The basement wasn't finished, at least not completely. A few dingy rugs covered the bare metal floor, and the stone walls were covered with a mess of her old finger paintings instead of real paint or wallpaper. The basement was also the coolest part of the house – though nothing was truly cold at this time of year- but hopefully the alien wouldn't mind.

Alice set it down again, but the alien seemed to sense that it was being temporarily abandoned. As she turned to go back upstairs, it clung to her leg and exhaled sadly, flaring its little gill-slits and making a sound like a broken reed pipe.

"Sorry…" Alice muttered. "But you _have_ to stay here." Despite all her strange pets, the girl had never actually had a dog before, but she figured this was what dog owners felt when they had to leave their new puppy alone in its kennel during its first night at home.

The alien still didn't let go, but its grip slackened enough for Alice to gently pry its fingers off her knees. She headed for the door, nearly running, and managed to get herself on the other side of it before the alien caught up to her.

She paused at the bottom of the stairs, listening for any noises in the basement. The alien whistled once, but didn't get as loud as it had in the forest. Alice wanted to stay longer and make sure it was doing okay in there, but just then she heard the garage door opening as her mom's car pulled up into the driveway.

Alice took the stairs two at a time, pulling herself up by the railing. She sprinted across the living room, then managed to jump onto the living room couch and turn on the TV just as her mother opened the door.

Mom was carrying two bulging bags of groceries, and Alice realized that her mother had simply been buying food instead of those other things she'd been speculating about.

"Hey, Alice," her mom said. "Sorry I took so long, but I really needed to stop by the shoe section this time." She displayed her new pair of silver platform sandals. "I hope you weren't too lonely without me," she teased. "What have you been up to while I was gone?"

"Nothing much," Alice muttered. "Just watching this cool show."

"Uh huh…" her mom said doubtfully. "Since when have you been into business? The Shark Tank isn't exactly Disney Channel material."

"I was just kinda flipping through the channels…"

Her mother just shrugged and walked into the kitchen, which was connected to the living room without a hallway or door. She busied herself with the groceries, unpacking milk into the refrigerator and arranging her spices in the cabinet.

Alice pretended to be watching the TV, which was now properly set to the Disney Channel, but she kept one eye on her mom and crossed her fingers in the hope that she wouldn't notice the mangled chair that stood near the kitchen table.

She didn't; at least not for the first few minutes. Alice watched, heart in her throat, as her mom finished with the groceries and washed off her hands in the sink.

"Are you going out tonight?" Alice asked.

"Nah, I think I'll just relax tonight. There's only one more day between now and the work week, you know."

Her mom went upstairs to change out of her blouse and jeans, and Alice breathed a huge sigh of relief. Maybe, if her mom hadn't noticed anything by now, that would mean that she wouldn't later.

Alice's optimism was shattered when the alien began making noises from downstairs. Small ones, at first, like little woodwind whimpers. Then it got louder, and Alice was on the verge of going down to shush the creature when her mom came back down the stairs.

She was wearing an old hoodie-and-sweatpants combo that she wouldn't be caught dead in outside the house. She looked more relaxed and, well, _mom-like_ than before. The relaxation didn't last long, however, when she heard the noises from the basement and laid eyes on Alice's guilty expression.

Alice hadn't really thought this through, had she? Of _course_ the stupid alien had to start making noises the second she left it alone.

"What's that?" her mom asked, frowning as she tried to determine where the sound was coming from. It stopped for a few seconds, then started up again. Her mom finally localized it to the basement, and Alice was helpless to stop her.

"It's probably just the wind," Alice said faintly. "Maybe it's getting into a crack somewhere down there and making that weird whistling noise."

"Maybe…" her mom wondered, doubtful again. "But it just… Doesn't sound right. Maybe an animal got in there somehow. I'm going down to check it out."

Alice rose from the couch to follow her. "Seriously, it's nothing," she begged, getting more desperate by the minute. "You don't need to go down there. Wanna let me look in the basement instead?"

Mom simply shook her head and started down the stairs. Alice wanted to leap in front of her and block her path, but she knew that would raise even more questions. She opted for a plan that was almost as risky, jumping in front of her mother and hightailing it down the stairs before Mom could catch up.

Inside the basement, the alien was standing so close to the entryway that Alice nearly hit it when she opened the door. She scooped up the creature, which instantly stopped calling for her, and tried to shove it into one of the nearby cupboards that was used for storage space. The alien resisted, splaying out its arms and legs and making itself too big to fit inside. Alice started prying off the limbs one at a time, but they came back to the edges faster than she could move them away.

Her mother got to the bottom of the stairs and looked inside the basement, puzzled at Alice's behavior. "What's going on?" she asked, her voice tinged with suspicion. "Is there something you don't want me to see?"

"N-nothing," Alice stuttered, realizing that the game was up but still attempting one last lie.

As her mother moved closer, Alice watched as her expression changed from disapproval to confusion to a sort of bewildered horror.

"What…" Mom whispered. Then her voice got louder, rising to a higher pitch with each word. "The holy hell is _that_?"


End file.
